Watford’s Under-21s were given a pre-season reminder of what can happen if you switch off as they drew 2-2 with local neighbours Kings Langley last night.

For 45 minutes, there only looked to be one outcome – a Watford win.

Adopting the same shape and style as the first team, the Under-21s had by far the better of the first half and the young players handled well some of the physicality of a team that was generally older and more worldly wise.

They should have been ahead after only a few minutes when Tobi Adeyemo shut down the Kings keeper and his attempted clearance ran to Amin Nabizada, but his shot snapshot from just inside the box hit the post.

It was pleasing to see Adeyemo leading the line in the opening 45 minutes after all his injury problems of last season.

The striker was catapulted into the limelight when he scored against Blackpool at Vicarage Road in January 2023, and now he’s back playing after so much time on the sidelines it’ll be interesting to see if he can – given patience – provide another No.9 option to the senior team.

Nabizada caught the eye again last night, and with his pace and trickery he is the sort of player that always will.

After a triallist had hooked home a volley from an Adeyemo knock-down in the 10th minute, it was the winger who netted the second after 34 minutes – an excellent diagonal pass from Laken Torres enabled Nabizada to break on the left, cut inside and finish into the corner.

Gabriel Ortelli, who spent part of last season on loan at Langley, made one good save from a corner while another player who had a spell on loan at The Orbital Fasteners Stadium, Michael Adu-Poku, again acquitted himself well as a right wing-back.

He played half of the first-team friendly against Boreham Wood in the same position, and his pace and willingness to run at people meant he was able to utilise the width and space available to him in the 3-4-2-1 that Watford play.

It’s nearly two years since Aidan Coyne moved from Perth Glory in Australia to Watford, and over that time he has shown he can comfortably fit into a variety of positions – and that adaptability saw him travel with the first team a few times last season.

Last night he played as one of three at the back, but he’s equally at home in midfield, and again he showed he could push himself into senior contention because of that ability to slip into a variety of different roles.

In truth, Watford should have had the game wrapped up by half-time, and that they didn’t came back to bite them on the behind after the interval.

As is the pre-season norm, there were several changes to the Hornets team at half-time, and perhaps that contributed to their tardy restart – they certainly were caught totally cold by the hosts who pulled one back with seconds of the kick-off and had squared it up by the 49th minute.

Indeed, it was Langley who looked more likely to carve out a winner as the game wore on, though both teams and the game itself lost a lot of pattern amid several more rounds of substitutions – a common factor in pre-season friendlies.

The home side forced one very good save from second-half keeper Roraigh Browne, but it was 45 minutes where it was very evident that getting minutes into legs was the predominant factor.

However, as with the first team, there was a clear shape and a pattern of play, and in that respect it was a good evening’s workout which showed there is a personality and approach running throughout the club’s teams.